The JHU ICMIC has invested significantly in the Development Projects. Our experience with the P20 program has demonstrated that supporting pilot studies can lead to exciting new discoveries in cancer imaging. The developmental projects will be awarded as one or two year projects with a budget not to exceed 70K per year. We received an overwhelming response to our requests to include potential developmental projects within the JHU ICMIC. Of these we have selected five for support in the first year. In subsequent years we will support three and then two projects per year. Thus approximately 14 developmental projects can be funded within the JHU ICMIC. Our first year projects represent the wide spectrum of expertise willing to actively participate in this program, These projects represent an integrated multi-disciplinary approach to using imaging to visualize and understand key targets in cancer. The strong emphasis on MR techniques in the research components is balanced by the emphasis on PET imaging in the developmental projects. Most of the developmental projects will directly link up with the research components. Dr. van Zijl will develop novel MR techniques to detect receptor expression which is linked with Dr. Artemov's and Dr. Raman's components on receptor imaging. PET imaging (Deweese) will be developed to detect response to siRNA against specific radiation repair enzymes. Observations made in this project will be important for the component utilizing siRNA against choline kinase, in terms of developing siRNA and detecting its effects in preclinical models. tumor angiogenesis and the effects of anti-angiogenic therapy. Dr Pomper will develop PET and optical probes to detect prostate cancer and response of prostate cancer therapy. Since nearly all the projects are therapy oriented, this probes developed here will be of potential benefit for detecting therapeutic response in prostate cancer with PET. Dr. Dang's project will also utilize PET to understand the role of the c-myc oncogene in vascularization and metabolism. The microarray analyses performed in several of the research components together with the imaging studies will further delineate the role of c-myc in the context of other molecular targets and treatments. Dr. Szabo's project will develop a novel PET ligand for imaging tumor angiogenesis which again is linked up with studies in the research components as well as in the other developmental projects. These projects are only possible because of the unique multi-discplinary skills brought together within the JHU ICMIC.